Thursday, 13 December 2007

You NEED This Story Today!

A young boy sat in the living room with his father occasionally trying to get his Dad's notice for a game he was playing, a drawing he'd done at school or to tell some tale or other about the adventures he'd had at play that day.

This evening, like most in that house, the father simply said 'not now son, I'm busy. Let me read the paper in peace. I'll play with you when I'm done'.

The boy, like most evening, waited patiently and yet... nothing.

Finally, the boy said 'Daddy, can I ask you a question?' to which the father said 'oh, alright, if it'll get me five minutes of peace!'

"How much do you earn an hour?"

The father was outraged.

"What kind of question is that? It's none of your business!... why do you want to know?"

The boy looked sheepish but said "oh, nothing. It's ok" and turned back to his toys.

The father sat incredulous in the chair but finally said "Ok, if you must know, I earn £20 an hour and I work very hard for it"

With a half smile the boy said "Thankyou daddy, I'm glad you told me" and rushed off to his room leaving the puzzled father alone with the paper.

About a minute later the boy came back in and said "Daddy... can I borrow £10?"

"What?? You ask me how much I earn and then ask to borrow money? Go to your room for your cheek!" and he sent the boy off to bed.

The father sat there feeling first angry, then annoyed and finally outright puzzled about what the boy had asked.

"What is he up to?" he thought.

After a little while, he went in to the bedroom where the boy lay sleeping and watched his little chest rise and fall with each breath.

As he leaned over to kiss the boy goodnight, the little fellow opened his eyes and said "Sorry daddy, I didn't mean to make you angry"

"That's ok" the father replied and, feeling bad for snappping at him earlier reached into his pocket and handed the boy the £10 he'd asked for.

The boy's face lit up and he cried "Thankyou, thankyou".

'Obviously this is important thought the father', "What are you going to buy?" he asked?

With that, the little boy reached under his pillow and pulled out 2 crumpled £5 notes that he'd obviously been hoarding for something special.

"Well Daddy, now I have £20... I was kind of wondering..." he stammered, now shy "... can I buy an hour of your time just for the two of us?

******************************************************

Why this story and why today?

That's what you're wondering right?

Well, 2 reasons.

First, because time is the most precious commodity we have and yet we all have a tendency to fritter it away wastefully on those unimportant trivialities that seem to find their way into our lives yet at the same time, hoard it in the most miserly fashion from those who we claim to love.

I wanted to remind you of that today so that you can remember what you're doing this whole thing for (by whole thing I mean this program, your business, your career)... it's to have more fun, enjoy life and spend it with those you love.

So give them a call today.

Tell them that you love them and show it by doing something special.

Second, I wanted to illustrate that just because someone is asking for something from you, it doesn't always mean that your act of giving will weaken you.

Very often the simple act of freely giving what you CAN afford to give (no matter how small) is enough to set in motion a chain of events that you can never have predicted.

Try it today.

You can start by giving away the story above.

Send it on to as many people as you can and see what kind of a ripple you can create. (Then send me an email telling me what happened)